Beekeeper Finds Sweet Rewards In Bonding With Bees

By Nancy K. Crevier

I am in a grove of American olive trees at the edge of Shortt’s Farm on Riverside Road in Sandy Hook, backing up oh-so-slowly and trying desperately to heed beekeeper Tony Planakis’s advice to not wave my hands or run as a honey bee pauses from its incessant humming about my head to investigate my hair. “He’s just on a curiosity flight,” Mr Planakis assures me as I creep further and further away from the hives and the beekeeper I have come to interview. The bee is humming in my ear, and I am not sure I like his melody.

All I can think about is the line from the 1996 movie, Jerry McGuire, when McGuire’s girlfriend’s precocious little boy gravely asks McGuire, “D’you know that bees and dogs can smell fear?”

His curiosity evidently satisfied, and my fear evidently not fragrant enough to get a rise out of this particular bee, the bee returns in a meandering path to the two hives Mr Planakis is adjusting to make room for a new, third hive on the Shortt property where he keeps his bees. It is not hot, but I am sweating.

Later, Mr Planakis explains to me that honey bees are actually reluctant to sting. “They know they will die. One sting and it’s over for honey bees, not like wasps or hornets that can sting again and again and again.”

It is one of the many tidbits of information Mr Planakis, a New York electrician who has summered in Sandy Hook since 1970, shares with me about beekeeping.

One piece of information from this beekeeper that I plan to file away for future reference is that bees are attracted to light-colored hair and those of fair skin. I thank my Scandinavian ancestors for making me a sitting duck this morning.

Mr Planakis explained to me that he does not always suit up in the protective gear he had donned this sunny morning to work with his bees. The night before, however, he had removed an unwanted hive from a New York City location and was relocating them to a new hive next to the two he keeps on Shortt’s Farm.

“I don’t know how aggressive these bees are,” he later explained. “I know my bees are gentle, but these bees have been upset and I won’t be able to tell for a few days what kind they are. These bees aren’t used to me.”

The Occasional Sting

The occasional sting is not an unknown experience to Mr Planakis, although the Carniolan bees he raises are among the most gentle of honey bees. With new bees of unknown temperament and his own bees feeling threatened, though, he felt it prudent to use protective gear as he introduced the box of captured bees to their new home. Having watched the torrent of bees swirl about his haz-mat-looking outfit, from a safely removed distance, as he dumped them out of the box and into the new hive, I would agree that that had been a wise move.

The process had taken a little longer than he had anticipated, he told me later, as he had needed to switch out frames from the two standing hives to create the new hive. When time allows, he said, he will build more frames.

A frame is made up of a wooden top bar and two end bars into which a beekeeper inserts a wax sheet imprinted with combs. This is where the bees will build their combs to hold the honey.

The frames, from six to ten usually, are hung in a box, and several boxes making up the body of the hive are stacked on top of each other to create the living space for the bees. Boxes that provide space for the bees to store surplus honey, which is what the beekeeper takes, are called supers.

In some literature, the full moon of June is referred to as the “honey moon,” when beekeepers harvest that extra honey. The month of June might signal the start of honey harvesting to some beekeepers, but Mr Planakis, who has been keeping bees for more than 20 years, said that more than a date on the calendar comes into play when collecting honey from hives.

Environment, weather, and location of the hives also figure largely as to when a beekeeper can harvest honey.

“The harvest could be anytime from late spring to fall,” he said, noting that the many rainy spring days followed by sunny days has made 2006 an ideal spring for honey bees.

Bees provide not only honey from the hive, but propolis and royal jelly, which folklore contends are natural health remedies. Propolis, the resinous substance collected from trees and bushes when a bee is foraging for nectar, is used by bees to help build the hive. Dr Michael T. Murray, co-author of A Textbook of Natural Medicine, notes on his website that studies suggest propolis boosts a weak immune system and serves as a topical anti-inflammatory, while bee pollen has successfully been used to treat allergies in certain individuals.

Royal jelly, a milky substance produced by bees from pollen, honey, and enzymes, is said to increase energy, but bees use it as a nutritional supplement for their queen.

Each hive can produce 20 to 30 pounds of honey per super in a good year, said Mr Planakis, but it is not the commercial possibilities of beekeeping that draw him to this hobby.

“Bees are a fascinating society. They are extremely organized and cooperative,” he explained. “When you’ve handled them long enough — I know it sounds a little odd — you almost develop a bond with them. I find being around the bees to be therapeutic. Beekeeping brings me outdoors, too.” Any excess honey he takes from the hives is given away to friends, family, and the Shortts, he said.

The two — now three — hives that Mr Planakis cares for on the Shortts’ property not only afford him a quiet reprieve from daily stresses, but are beneficial to the Shortt farm, as well. The honey bees are diligent workers, joining bumblebees and butterflies in pollinating the flowers and crops.

Part of the enjoyment of having hives has been determining where the hives will be located on property, said Mr Planakis. He had bees for many years at his Sandy Hook residence, but when the ant problem there became too problematic three years ago, Jim Shortt offered to let Mr Planakis set up hives on the farm.

“Before I set out the hives, I came down to the property and sat here with my cup of coffee and just watched things. I had to spend a lot of time watching where the sun came up, where it went down, how much sun and shade they would get, how that changed over the weeks, what kind of plants were blooming and when; all kinds of things go into where a hive will be. If I notice the bees flying off at an angle, I might decide to adjust how the hives are situated,” said Mr Planakis.

The first location on the Shortt farm turned out not to be the best for the bees, so under the cover of darkness, a time when the bees are all in their hive and relatively calm, Mr Planakis shifted the hives to the olive grove. A better location means better honey production and a healthier hive, he said.

Angry Intruders

Raising bees is not without its moments, though, said Mr Planakis. Three summers ago, he encountered a situation that left him happy he had paid attention to his intuition.

“I decided to suit up when I visited the hives,” he recalled. “I had the smoker going, too, which I don’t like to use to quiet the bees, but I just thought I needed it that day. As I approached the hive, it felt like someone was throwing rocks at me. I thought maybe Jim [Shortt] was just being funny and tossing pebbles at me. I kept going and it started up again — ping, ping — like little rocks hitting me and I couldn’t figure what was going on.”

What was going on became clear as he neared his hives: bald-face hornets had built a nest on top of one of the hives and were angrily attacking him. Carnivores, the hornets had also made short work of the bees.

“They had taken about 30 percent of the bees in just the three weeks since I had last visited,” he said.

Being on an organic farm made the situation a little trickier to deal with, as pesticides could not be applied to eliminate the hornets. Safe application of a pesticide without doing harm to the delicate honey bees is always an issue, too, said Mr Planakis. “What Jim and I ended up doing was encapsulating the hornet nest in a fiberglass bag, removing it from the property and destroying it.”

Along with natural predators, such as hornets and ants, honey bees are also threatened by widespread infestations of tracheal and veroa mites. Many hives fall victim to these mites, which attack bees internally and externally. Mites and overzealous application of pesticides to the environment have decimated the wild honey bee population, and Mr Planakis stressed that beekeepers must remain diligent in warding off infestations to the hives.

“The hives must be treated each fall, and timing is important,” he said. The biggest danger to honey bees, however, is human ignorance, said Mr Planakis.

“Fear, misinformation, confusion, those are all the things that hurt bees,” he said. In many states, it is required that feral bees be humanely removed and relocated. Unfortunately, people often react to a bee infestation by attempting to destroy the colony, rather than calling a expert to remove the bees safely.

Simply reading pesticide labels and applying them properly can protect bees, he said. Honey bees are particularly sensitive to products commonly applied to home gardens. “You know how it is,” said Mr Planakis. “The directions say use three tablespoons, so everyone uses six. It’s deadly to bees.”

Aerial applications to reduce mosquito populations also can be deadly to honey bees, and a lawn bereft of dandelions and clover is not a friendly environment for bees. Lawns treated chemically to remove weeds and produce a lush carpet are hazardous to foraging honey bees.

He cares for his bees with the same attention others lavish upon their cats and dogs. To maintain the health of his hives, he visits them one to two times a week during the peak season, but often will come by at other times just to observe the colony. Even in colder months, the dormant bees rely on him to supply them with feed, a sugar water mixture, to help them through in particularly extreme weather situations.

 “I enjoy the bees,” he said. “If I get stung, I ask myself, ‘What did I do wrong?’ It’s usually not the bee, it’s me.”

Everyone can enjoy the rewards of a good crop pollinated by bees or the sweet honey removed from the hive and packaged in those cute bear-shaped bottles. But not everyone revels in the simple pleasures of beekeeping as does Mr Planakis.

The bees are humming contentedly about the three hives. My heartbeat has returned to normal and I have gained a lot of respect for the humble honey bee.

Mr Planakis contemplates the grove that is home to his bees. “To me, it’s a little Shenandoah back there. It’s the bees, me, and a cup of coffee.”